


Flickering streetlamps and degradation

by Tabata



Series: Leoverse [65]
Category: Glee
Genre: Alternate Universe - Role Reversal, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-16
Updated: 2019-02-16
Packaged: 2019-10-29 18:07:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,327
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17812877
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tabata/pseuds/Tabata
Summary: In a game of reversed roles, Leo is a 35 years old writer and Blaine is a 15 years old kid with daddy (and many other) issues.





	Flickering streetlamps and degradation

**Author's Note:**

> **WARNING:** This story is an **AU** from the original 'verse. What happens in here has little to none correlation with what happens in Leonard Karofsky-Hummel VS The world or Broken Heart Syndrome. The characters involved are (mostly) the same, but situations and relationships between them may be completely different.
> 
> written for: COW-T #9  
> prompt: age difference

The town center at night is a pitiful sight. There are very few things to see and even less to do. It’s a dead zone. He used to come here every Friday night when he was a kid and it looked like a cool place to him and his friends. They hadn’t been anywhere else, after all. And they had nowhere else to go. Now it's a sad place to come back, especially for the reason he's here tonight.

Leo parks his car right at the entrance of the alley, somewhat blocking off the light of the few streetlamps that are still working in the main street of this sad provincial town. He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath before getting out of his black SUV. It's upsetting that he has witnessed this scene – or very similar versions of it – so many times at this point that he can easily make out Blaine in the vague shape at the end of the alley. He walks slowly to him and Blaine raises his head, smirking. “Oh, look at you. Is that your mad face or your disappointed face, _Karofsky_? I can never tell!”

He always calls him by his last name when he's hating on him. He always says it like it's trash. As if Leo could get upset for it. But he's been forced to leave an important meeting with his editor and to put his life on hold. Again. So, yes, he's upset and disappointed. “It's both,” he informs him. “Now get up and get in the car.”

“Are you taking me home, stranger?” Everything that comes out of his mouth is a joke to mock him. Leo is supposed to take it because, in Blaine’s eyes, he deserves it. But they have been playing this game for too long and he’s very tired.

“You know I can't do that,” he says.

“I thought so,” Blaine nods, knowingly. His cheeks are red and his golden eyes are lucid. He's drunk and he's been for a while already. “See, this is the problem. If you can't be arsed to take me to your house, then I'd rather stay here, clear my head a little and then go back inside where people love me.”

“People don’t love _you_ in there, they love your ass.”

Blaine frowns at him. “And what do you love about me? Because from where I’m standing, you’re not that much different from them,” he says. “Except that you like my cock in your ass in an hotel room instead of the back of a car. How can one thing be good and the other bad? Uh?”

“You know exactly how, you are not stupid.”

Blaine snorts. “Now, it _would_ be different if you, say, took me home once in a while, introduced me to your friends, treat me like the boyfriend you say I am.”

“You are, but you know I can't do what you ask me,” Leo says, repeating the same answer he's been feeding him for months now. He's thirty-five, a well-known writer, and Blaine is fifteen and as loud as teenagers can be. He can't just parade him around as if their relationship was normal. He just _can't_ have someone see him coming in and out of his house. That simply cannot happen. Not now, not while Blaine’s still a minor.

“The only thing I know is that you don't want to,” Blaine says, chuckling. “Because you're boring.”

“Reasonable,” he corrects him. “A thing you do all in your power not to be, ever.”

Blaine struggles, but he ultimately manages to stand, leaning against the wall. “I just want to have fun,” he says. “And as much as sex with you is good, Leo, you're no fun at all.”

“Is this fun?” He asks, pointing at the back entrance of the club. “Drink yourself stupid, pretend to be older and hook up with several different people every night?”

Blaine shrugs. “Well, yes. That's good fun, if you ask me,” he confirms. “Besides, you're the one big on monogamy. I never asked you that. And even if, you don't want to be with me anyway.”

“I do want to be with you!” Leo raises his voice. Then, realizing that they are still in the middle of the street, he lowers it again. “I do want to, Blaine. But not now! When you will be old enough, then—“

“And what am I supposed to do in the meantime? Wait patiently for you like a war wife while you're busy with your job, your friends, your life, which is everywhere else but here with me? Leo, I can't do that. I don't _want_ to do that. If you want to mess around with me whenever you've got free time, then sure, I'm down with it. But when you don't, when you're away, then I'm going to live my life the way I want to.”

Leo frowns. “Which is having mindless sex with strangers?!”

“Yes! 'Cause the one I want to have non-mindless sex with has always something else to do!” Blaine lets out, frustrated.

“I have to work, Blaine!” Leo insists. “I can’t just give up everything and come to live here with you.”

Blaine shrugs. “Why not? You’re a writer, all you need is a computer and an internet connection. Would it be so bad to live here?”

“You are missing the point,” Leo says, even if he knows that trying to reason with him is useless when he's in this state. He takes a few more steps towards him, offering his hand. “Come on, get in the car. You're having a shower and then we're ordering in. I bet you skipped dinner again.”

Blaine ignores both his hand and his words. “Maybe I know why you don't want to come back to live here,” he goes on following his own train of thoughts. “It’s your personal assistant, isn't it? He doesn't like Lima at all.”

“Cody likes Lima enough,” Leo frowns. “What he doesn't like is you. Can you blame him?”

Blaine and Cody crossed paths only once about six months ago and Leo still gets upset when he thinks about it. It wasn't planned – obviously, Leo would have never consciously planned for the two of them to meet so soon and like that – but it happened and Blaine was cruel.

Any time Leo manages to find a couple of days to drive to Lima and spend time with Blaine, he does everything properly. He leaves telling Cody he doesn't want to be disturbed for whatever reason, he turns off the phone and disappears off the face of the earth. Usually, that is enough and Cody is more than capable of holding the fort while he's away.

Unfortunately, while he was locked in an hotel room with Blaine, something happened that required his presence, or at least his approval, and Cody couldn't reach him. The poor thing tried calling at least thirty times and left as many messages, hoping Leo would read them at some point. After two days of radio silence, he was forced to use the satellite tracking of the car to find out where he was and then he hired a car service to get there. He was speaking with the man at the reception when Leo and Blaine came down the stairs. Blaine and Cody looked at each other and they both instantly knew what was going on. Leo barely managed to put the two of them in the car before Blaine started insulting Cody, first hinting at his inability to do his job – If your boss says he doesn't want to be disturbed, you don't show up at his hotel by tracking his fucking car! It's not that hard to understand! – and then at a supposedly dubious role he would have had in Leo's life – Or were you missing your owner, bitch? Couldn't you spend three days without bending over on his desk?

Leo had obviously scolded him for that, which had been completely pointless. Instead of apologizing, Blaine had become even more vicious. Feeling that Cody had invaded his territory, he had behaved like an animal, not violent in actions but in words and Leo had not been able to rein him in. Cody had quickly delivered his message, pleaded Leo to come back and then run out of the car in tears. Blaine and Leo had fought over the incident and they had screamed at each other for the best part of an hour. Then, unable to leave in bad terms with him, Leo had gone for some form of reconciliation and they had ended up having angry make up sex. Their relationship was fixed, but Cody remained a sore subject.

“It's not my fault if he can't take criticism,” Blaine shrugs. “Or a hint, for that matter. How dumb can you be to show up when your boss clearly wants to be alone? And the stunt with the satellite tracking of your car? He's sick in the head. He's a stalker!”

“He was just trying to do his job,” Leo sighs.

“I've never really understood what it is, by the way,” Blaine muses, and Leo can read in his voice that he's about to say something mean again. “What does a writer like you do with a _personal assistant_? You are not a businessman! And you like to manage your own social media by yourself! What the hell does he ever do all day? Do you even have an office? Does he? See, I would know all those things if I had ever been to your house even once!”

Leo doesn't feel like he has to justify Cody's salary to him and he hates that Blaine thinks he's supposed to, so he doesn't answer. “Cody is not the point, Blaine,” he says instead. “Yes, I could work from here, but I don't just _write books_ as you seem to think. My job is so much more than that and I just can't revolutionize my life over night. In time I will, of course, when you will be older and I will have the chance to make some necessary changes. You just have to be patient.”

“I could be patient and have fun, the two things are not mutually exclusive, you know?” Blaine comments, testing his patience again. Always testing his patience. “But you don't want to let me do that.”

“No, I would rather you didn't give away yourself like this,” Leo confirms with a sigh. “Why are you so restless? Why can't you just behave for a little while? A few years, Blaine! Nothing more! Just finish high-school and that's it, we can do whatever we want! Why can't you just do that?!”

“Because I'm young now, not in a few years!” Blaine snaps, finally. “There are things I want to do now, not when Your Highness will be comfortable with them. You... you can't refuse to be properly with me but ask me not to be with anyone else, Leo! You can't have both! I hate that you even think this is acceptable!”

“If this,” Leo opens his arms wide to include everything that surrounds them: the club, the alley, the flickering streetlamps, the degradation he regularly finds Blaine in, “if this is what you want, then why did you leave a message saying you were going to make a mess tonight, _demanding_ that I came and fix it before it was too late!?”

Blaine just explodes, his voice too loud in the quiet night. “Because this is the only way I can get to see you lately!” He blurts out, desperation finally dripping from his voice. “It's either I threaten you with something horrible or you ignore me!”

“I wasn't ign—“

“When was the last time you called me willingly?” Blaine interrupts him. “When was the last time I called you and you didn't ask your stupid personal assistant to say you were busy? Uh?”

“I was—“

“Working! Yes, I know!” Blaine takes a few steps forward. “All my life I've lived with a man who was working so much that he didn't have time for his son. I don't need the same shit from you too.”

Blaine never cries. It was one of the first things Leo noticed about him. Tears are a sign of weakness for him, they mean showing his flank, which he never really does – something that has to do with his father and the kind of relationship they have. But he has a breaking point, a limit beyond which his body can no longer contain all the rage he disciplined himself to keep inside.

Leo has learned to identify that quiver in his voice, and when he hears it, all his anger towards him just dissipates. He himself was a crying teenager and he is a crying man now. Crying is the only way for him to let out things that he would otherwise express with way more violence, and it pains him that Blaine thinks he's not allowed to be fragile every now and then, that he has to keep it all in until his body is so full that it threatens to explode and kill him.

Leo knows that when he will offer his hand this time, Blaine will accept it, so he's not surprised when he can hold him in his arms, Blaine's face hidden in the nook of his neck. “Let's get out of here,” he says softly in his hair. “We can talk again tomorrow.”

Leo has learned on his skin how to recognize Blaine's limit, even when it's hidden. He had to learn it because he's been the one who has forced him to reach it most of the times, lately. And he knows he has to make amend for that. Someday he will, he promises himself.

But he's grateful Blaine doesn't ask him how much time he will stay this time, he doesn't really want another fight.


End file.
